November 20, 2005

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
and Other Reasons
Murtha is Right

Yesterday someone who actually matters said it: "get out of Iraq, now." That would be Rep. John Murtha, D-PA.

Over the next few days you will be bombarded with analysis on whether Murtha's proposal is a wise strategic move or a "cut and run" strategy. What you won't read in the paper or hear on the talking head shows is why Murtha's plan is not about Iraq's future at all, but yours, mine, our kids their kids, America's.

There's so much at stake here. Murtha touched on some of what's up for grabs because of Iraq. In his statement he pointed out how this poorly planned and executed war has nearly decimated America's once robust military. But, as serious as that is, it barely scratches the surface. The damage this war has done, is doing and continue doing, cuts to America's very bone.

The damage this war is causing is so immense, so virulent it's like a fast-growing cancer, spreading, chewing away at us, even as we try to ignore that we are getting weaker and weaker. It's as if America is bleeding internally. We don't see it, though if we could it would scare the hell out of us. But we are feeling it. We know. We know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

So what to do? What's the cure? Dr. Murtha has diagnosed the cause, and suggested a cure, but the patient remains largely in denial.

Let's see if we can put this in perspective for those in DC who "want to stay the course," rather than accept Dr. Murtha's cure.

Remember when Republicans used to scream about how federal money was being squandered by Democrats on welfare? They used to drag out those images of so-called "welfare queens" loading groceries bought with food stamps into their shiny new Cadillacs. Remember them?

Well, fellas, say hello to America's new welfare Queen, Iraq. And forget food stamps. This queen gets no bid contracts for smarmy characters (like this scumball,) millions upon millions in bribes to warlords, half-educated (but well-armed) mullahs. Billions of US taxpayer dollars are flooding going to upgrade Iraqi infrastructure while our own infrastructure here at home crumbles. Corruption in Iraq is a way of life.

Once Iraqi oil fueled the process. That's now been replaced (even eclipsed) by US aid. No food stamps or Cadillacs for these welfare queens, (well, actually welfare kings because women don't count) but for them it's Hummers, villas in Europe and fat Swiss bank accounts.

Back home our own federal budget is stretched so thin by the cost of propping up the Iraqis that yesterday members of Congress were reduced to fighting over a measly $5 billion ($50 billion in budget cuts over the next 10 years.) The cuts were made, of course, largely by trimming social programs, like the $900 million they cut from rural health care, and reductions in Medicare and Pell Grants. (Compassionate conservatism = tax cuts for the rich, programs cuts for the poor. Go ahead, Enterprise Institute, try to tell me that ain't so. Who do I believe? You or my lying eyes?)

Republicans stood firm against repealing a red cent of the Bush tax cuts, or taxing big oil. What they did do though is fiddle with the way energy companies compute their income, resulting in what might trim $4 billion from the $12 billion in tax cuts they awarded them earlier this year. The President immediately threatened a veto over that. (Tax cuts and record earnings for big energy, record home heating costs for the working poor. Go ahead. Try to convince me it ain't so, George, Dick. )

Let's bring this rambling rant back to Rep. Murtha now. He would bring US troops out of Iraq over the next 6 months. Let's do the math.

* Congress just cut $50 billion over ten years.
* That comes to $5 billion in cuts a year.
* Iraq is costing us $5 billion A MONTH.

(So far we have pissed away nearly $221 billion over there – up-to-the-second amount HERE)

With that money, instead of cutting funds we could have:

* Provided health insurance to 131,947,415 kids,
* Could have sent 29 million kids to preschool,
* Could have hired nearly 4 million new teachers,
* Could have funded over 10 million 4-year college scholarships
* Could have built over 2 million new low-income housing units

I won't belabor the point. You get it. We're wasting $5 billion a month in Iraq and cutting $5 billion a year from important social needs here at home. If Murtha's plan were implemented the costs being incurred in Iraq would begin to drop immediately as our troops, and the enormous logistical infrastructure needed to support them, was deployed out of the war zone.

Within six months we would be in a strictly support posture in Iraq, at a fraction of the cost of the current occupation. Instead of the measly $5 billion a year in cuts chest-thumping hypocrites in Congress authorized yesterday, Murtha's withdrawal from Iraq would save us $60 billion a year, or $600 billion over the same 10-years. That money would not only cover the programs they cut yesterday, but would significantly trim the federal budget deficit for the first time since George W. Bush and his Mayberry militia marched into town five years ago.

And that's just the dollar and cents reason for taking Murtha's advice. There's still plenty of other good reasons as well. . Let me list a few and at the same time address the reasons the administration claims we can't withdraw now:

The administration claims our troops "will stand down when the Iraqis stand up:"
I would suggest that Republicans use exactly the same logic they did years ago when they justified cutting welfare programs. They argued then that people on welfare will remain on welfare as long as they can. It's human nature, they said. You have force the issue. There was truth to that then, and it applies in Iraq even more. Iraqis have little incentive to assume all enormous costs and risk of self-defense and self-governance while the richest nation on earth continues pouring money and resources into their country. Iraqis can and will continue living what we consider miserable lives under the occupation. They are used to it. They lived miserable lives under Saddam. They have become maestros of misery and by necessity, masters at making lemonade out of lemons of misery. They are going to make as much lemonade out of our occupation as they can for as long as they can. So, the Bush folks actually have it exactly bass-akwards: The Iraqis will stand up, only when we stand down.

The administration claims foreign terrorists from Syria and Iran are crossing the borders and causing many of the Iraq's problems.
Assuming that's true, and it's not entirely so, I suggested a solution to that problem, real or not. A solution that would not only expose the truth of it, but get our troops out of danger as well. I suggested we give the Iraqis a few months to get their act together once and for all. We should tell them that on a date certain we would redeploy U.S. troops to secure Iraq's borders. After that, with the exception of air support, American troops would no longer engage in ground operations inside Iraq proper. By sealing the border we would find out very quickly just who is causing all the trouble. We would also find out what kind of country Iraqis really want and who they want running it. Sure, it would be bloody as Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds fight it out for turf, oil, religious and political control. So what? It's bloody now. At least it won't be the blood of US kids. And, once the dust settles we will know exactly who we are going to have to deal with in the years ahead.


The administration claims that leaving Iraq now would turn the country into a base for terrorists.
Again – a big so what. That's right, so what? The place is crawling with terrorists right now. Only the Iraqis can decide what kind of folks they want running things after we leave. Democracy sumocracy. You can drag a jackass to water but.. well, you know. Whatever form of government Iraqis settle upon, I seriously doubt they will choose a terrorocracy. But let's assume the worst. Let's assume that we leave and Iraq becomes the new Afghanistan for terrorists. What then? "

"Terrorists will get all that oil revenue," Republicans parrot. Well, that's an easy problem to fix. We just do what they are doing to us right now, blow up the oil infrastructure and then blow it again when they fix it. That strategy sure has worked well for them. Remember, Iraq's oil was supposed to pay for this war. The terrorists made damn sure that wet dream was never realized. And we can return the favor. In fact it's easier for us to keep Iraq's oil in the ground than it was for them. We can do it from the air. Hell, with Cruise missiles we can do it without even leaving home.

So, we leave and the terrorists take over Iraq. Then what? They have a new base of operation, that's true. But they have little money and all the sand they can eat. I'm not saying that terrorists are no threat to America, I am only saying that terrorists in control of Iraq are no more a threat to America than they are right now. (I still believe Iraqis will not let that happen.)

The administration claims leaving Iraq now will make America less secure.
Quite the opposite. Let's say a terrorist wants to launch an attack on American soil. How might he/she go about it? Well, for starters, take a short vacation to sunny Mexico. Then buy a Cornoa tee shirt, slip on a pair of used sneakers and blend in with the morning "commute" over, under, through or around the US/Mexico border fence. After that, it's a piece of cake.

The sorry truth is that America is already insecure – a security fools paradise. The main reason for that is all the treasure and personnel we've squandered in Iraq. Our borders with Mexico and Canada are wide open. Terrorists can, and likely already have, just strolled across unchallenged. Think about that the next time an airport security guard treats you as though you tick.

Let's stop pretending that somehow what we are doing in Iraq is making us safer here at home. It's not. And it won't. Ever.

The administration claims that we either "fight terrorists over there or we will have to fight them here.
I find this argument particularly repugnant, and let me explain why. I've owned a few fail boats over the years. When you own a salt-water boat you need to protect it's various metal parts from being eaten away by natural electrolysis. The way you do that is to secure a hunk of zinc to a piece of metal below the waterline. Zinc is attracts the electrical charge and, as long as it's there, the electrolysis will eat away at the zinc instead of attacking the other metal parts. They aptly call these little attachments "sacrificial zinc." You have to keep replacing them, but they are cheaper and easier to replace than a drive shaft or prop.

And therein lies the theory behind this administration's "fight them over there or here," argument. US troops are being used (misused) as this administration's solution for domestic terrorism. They are being used to attract terrorists to Iraq, where it's more convenient for the terrorists and wannabe terrorists to shoot and blow up Americans. They are, you might say, "sacrificial kids." Is that how we "support the troops?" By dangling them thousands of miles from home like bait to attract terrorists away from our homeland? Is that why we have and raise kids in America now, to chum for terrorist?

American troops may well need to die in the years ahead to protect America from terrorists. I don't argue with that. But if so, those young lives should be lost only in the defense of American soil, beginning with our own Swiss cheese borders and wide open ports.


I could go on. But it's the weekend and you need to get out and do something more enjoyable and useful than listening to Dr. Doom here. Let me just say, Murtha was right. Murtha IS right. And if we had an ounce of sense we would embrace and implement his plan immediately.

An opportunity to do so is less than two months away. Iraqis go to the polls on December 15 to elect a permanent government. That makes January 1, 2006 the perfect moment to launch the Murtha strategy. Tell the Iraqis that, beginning April 15, 2006, the day Americans pay their taxes, U.S. ground combat troops will be moved to newly created border garrisons. At the same moment announce that the 28,000 US troops added earlier this year to "provide security for Iraqi elections," would be returned to the US immediately. Then every month thereafter another 10,000 US troops would be redeployed out of Iraq.

Then we let the chips (finally) fall where they will and adjust to that new reality accordingly. Because, if we keep doing what we've been doing, we are just gonna keep getting what we've got.

Pizzo, over and out. Have a nice weekend.

November 17, 2005

Who's Lying Now ?


When did this happen?

WASHINGTON, - White House advisers convene secret sessions about the political dangers of revelations that American troops committed atrocities in the war zone ..... in the face of an increasingly unpopular war, they wonder at the impact on support at home. The best way out of the war, they agree, is to prop up a new government that they hope can unite the fractured foreign land.....The President, meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told them to pull out all the stops. "don't worry, we're taking the political heat. "Publicly, we say one thing," he told aides. "Actually, we do another."

You are forgiven for assuming that was George Bush and Dick Cheney's talking points yesterday. Actually it straight out of newly released Nixon administration documents from 1969. Back then Nixon was trying to worm out of blow back from the Mai Lai massacre and his illegal bombing of neutral Cambodia. (Full Story)

The reason I bring this up is because yesterday our current President and Vice President were busy furiously denying they lied to get us into another war.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - Vice President Dick Cheney joined the White House attack on critics of the Iraq war Wednesday night when he told a conservative group that senators who had suggested that the Bush administration manipulated prewar intelligence were making "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." (Full Story)

It took 36 years to confirm that Nixon lied. So, do we now have to wait another 36 years to find out whether or not this administration's lied to us too? Should we have to? After all, democracy is just a sham if citizens are forced to vote in dark.

The President and VP say they did not lie ("I'm not a crook?") Instead they accuse those who who say they did of being the liars. Okay, so let's find out who's lying. The Senate should get on with it's Phase 2 investigation.

But considering the Senate is under control of the ruling party, a Senate investigation is not enough now. Things have gone too far now. Instead Congress should impanel an independent commission, ala the 911 Commission. And, considering that the war in Iraq is an ongoing conflict, time is of the essence. This commission's mandate should be narrowed to the the question at hand: Did the administration make an honest mistake, exaggerate, manipulate, misrepresent or flat out lie on their stated reasons for attacking Iraq? And get that answer to us, not 36 years or 36 months from now, but within 4 months.

And it can be done just that quickly too. We learned today with the release of the Nixon documents, that the answers are already right there on paper, over at the White House. They were there 36 years ago and they are there today. Go get them. If they contain real secrets, keep the parts that deserve secrecy, secret. But expose the lies. Lies are not secrets. They are simply lies -- who knows, they might even be evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Has this administration pulled a Nixon on us? ("Publicly, we say one thing. Actually, we do another.")

Don't you think we should find out – and much sooner rather than too late?

McGovern Redux
Today Democrat Congressman John Murtha formally demanded that US troops be "redeployed" (withdrawn) from Iraq over the next six months. Finally, someone bit the bullet and said it. It was this war's McGovern moment.

When George McGovern came out against the Vietnam War the Nixon gang had a problem on their smarmy little hands. They couldn't paint McGovern as unpatriotic because, while Nixon honed his poker-playing skills behind the lines during WWII, McGovern flew 35 combat missions as a B-24 bomber pilot over Germany. He was among the half of such pilots who survived those dangerous missions earning him a Distinguished Flying Cross.

The Bush neocons, none of whom served in the military, face a similar dilemma in the form of Congressman John Murtha. Bush and Cheney's are now accusing Democrats of aiding and abetting America's enemies by raising questions about their veracity. But Murtha's patriotism is unassailable. In 1966 then Marine Corps Captain John Murtha volunteered for Vietnam, receiving the Bronze Star with Combat "V", two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

During that same war George W. Bush won several drinking contests in Houston while protecting Texas one weekend each month from the much feared Viet Cong Air Force. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld successfully avoided the (very) Selective Service dragnet entirely.

Now comes John Murtha, a guy who knows a quagmire when he sees one because he saw one up close. Are George and Dick going to turn their attack dogs loose on Captain Murtha now? I'd like to see them try.

By the way, while Murtha is a Democrat, he is also a favorite of Pentagon brass. Which raises the possibility that Murtha is speaking for frustrated Generals and Admirals sick of watching this administration waste their troops and treasure on a wet dream cooked up by a bunch of chicken hawk neocons who don't know a trigger assembly from a light switch.

November 16, 2005

From the Feet of Clay Department


It's become fashionable to bash the Mainstream Media, especially here in the blogesphere. Actually it's become more than fashionable, it's achieved cliché status. But as an old reporter I have to ask, what the hell is happening to my profession?

Geez Louise, hardly a day seems to pass that I don't pick up a newspaper to find another veteran journalist trying to wiggle out of how he/she blew a big story, got it wrong and/or became part of the story itself – and not even in a good way.

It's one thing when it's some wannabe, loser like Jason Blair crosses the line, but quite another when it's veteran journalists like Judy Miller at the New York Times, and now Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed. (Full Story)

Bob, Bob, Mighty Bob, say it ain't so.

And he did try to say it ain't so. In a Milleresque statement to readers in today's Post Woodward tries to explain what happened. And, like Miller before him, he only digs himself in deeper. (Full Text of Woodward's explanation.)

Maybe Woodward's explanation will wash with non-journalist readers, but it sets off all kinds of alarm bells among those who have walked Washington as a beat for a living.

Let me parse the parts of Woodward's statement that just don't wash.

Woodward: I was first contacted by Fitzgerald's office on Nov. 3 after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst.

So, let me see. Bob of Watergate fame, remained silent about this little bombshell the whole time Judy Miller cooled her heels in prison. She was there for refusing to testify about the same thing. Disclosure that he had been told the same thing by another top administration official even before she had been told, would not have gotten Judy out of the slammer. But that was not Bob's job. What it would have been, though, is a good old fashioned scoop -- the kind of story Woodward would have written in a heartbeat thirty years ago. What happened Bob? Your source was confidential, you say. Fine. So don't identify the source. But write the goddamned story!

Woodward: The interviews were mostly confidential background interviews for my 2004 book "Plan of Attack" about the leadup to the Iraq war, ongoing reporting for The Washington Post and research for a book on Bush's second term to be published in 2006. (Emphasis mine)

There you have it. Another Woodward Best Seller in the works, but not due out until early next year. So, was he sitting on the information in order to keep it fresh for his book release? If so that's grounds for dismissal by the Post. The only reason Woodward routinely gets the kind of privileged access to top administration officials no other reporter can get is because he is "Bob Woodward or the Washington Post." The materials he uses in his books is, in large part, the product of his and other Post reporters on-the-job investigative research and reporting. To withhold a scoop like this from his own paper, then use it in a future book, is a violation of trust and his fiduciary responsibilities to both his paper and it's readers. Fire him.

Woodward: I testified that after the mid-June 2003 interview, I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst. Pincus does not recall that I passed this information on.

Oh come on Bob! Walter is Old School. He has forgotten more about Intelligence and DC palace-politics than Woodward knows. Walter would have written that story had he known about it. If Walter says he does not recall such a conversation with Woodward then no such conversation occurred. Period. I'd put fat money on it.

Woodward: I also testified that I had a conversation with a third person on June 23, 2003. The person was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and we talked on the phone. I told him I was sending to him an 18-page list of questions I wanted to ask Vice President Cheney. On page 5 of that list there was a question about "yellowcake" and the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's weapons programs. I testified that I believed I had both the 18-page question list and the question list from the June 20 interview with the phrase "Joe Wilson's wife" on my desk during this discussion. I testified that I have no recollection that Wilson or his wife was discussed, and I have no notes of the conversation.

Yeah well someone at the White House had a belated "recollection," of that conversation. Woodward's source(s) memories were jogged by seeing Scooter Libby indicted after his contemporarious notes also didn't jive with his sworn grand jury testimony. So, Bob's source(s) suddenly remembered this pivotal conversation and tripped all over themselves racing to confess about it – I presume to correct earlier testimony to the contrary.

Woodward: Though neither Wilson nor Wilson's wife's name had surfaced publicly at this point, Pincus had published a story the day before, Sunday, June 22, about the Iraq intelligence before the war. I testified that I had read the story, which referred to the CIA mission by "a former senior American diplomat to visit Niger." Although his name was not used in the story, I knew that referred to Wilson.

So let me get this straight, Bob. Your paper's premiere intelligence reporter is struggling to understand the most important emerging scandal since Watergate – the reason America went to war – and you didn't share with him that hot, highly relevant tip you got from a high administration official?

Remember, the Pincus story came just two days after Woodward was told about Wilson's wife. Woodward admits in his statement today that he knew the "former senior American diplomat" Picus referred to in his story was Joe Wilson. Still he did not run to Picus and say, "Whoa.. hold the presses. Something's fishy here. I am getting back-channeled by the White House on this telling me that Wilson's wife is a CIA WMD expert and that she sent him on this trip. What's up with that?"

Nope. Bob didn't do that, not then, not ever. Mum was the word. During the months that followed as the CIA-leak case mushroomed into the biggest Washington scandal since Watergate, Bob kept his secret. No story. Bob Woodward kept this critical piece of the timeline puzzle to himself – though you can bet your sweet bippy it's in his soon-to-be published book. The public's right to know would have to wait.

Woodward: I testified after consulting with the Post's executive and managing editors, the publisher, and our lawyers. We determined that I could testify based on the specific releases obtained from these three people.

Well duh. If that isn't an attempt to turn necessity into a virtue then I've never seen one. The sources "released" Woodward from his confidentiality pledge when they turned themselves into Fitzgerald in the hope they can avoid being Scooterized themselves. In his news conference following that indictment Fitzgerald sent an unambiguous message to the rest of the perps in the administration; "Withhold information and lie to me and I will send you up the river." So, Bob Woodward didn't break this important story, his sources did.

Woodward: I was first contacted by Fitzgerald's office on Nov. 3 after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst.

Let me be clear. I am not criticizing Woodward because he did not run to Fitzgerald with this information the moment he knew that chronologically he had likely been the first reporter to get this leak from a White House source. That's not a his or any other reporter's job. But he should have broke that story, or let Walter Pincus break it while that information was most relevant to the emerging scandal -- which would have been in June or early July 2003. And, he could have done so without violating any source confidentiality agreements by simply not naming his sources.

But he didn't. Instead he sat on that story. Meanwhile, over at rival New York Times, Judy Miller was committing an opposite kind of din, she wasn't sitting on anything. She took the complete opposite tact -- "Never investigate a good leak too far." In so doing Miller became the administration's pro-war propaganda handmaiden.

Both Bob and Judy now claim they were just protecting sources. In fact what they were protecting was their privileged access to top administration officials. Those contacts had put both reporters at the top of their profession. It had made them famous too. And in Woodward's case, they allowed him to crank out best sellers chuck full of inside information available to no one else. This was a "hand that feed's ya," situation if ever there was one.

This administration has sullied so many things that make (or at least made) America great. But maybe the most disturbing may be how they have polluted the public's information streams by corrupting and neutering free and independent press – even one-time heavy hitters like Judy and Bob.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

November 15, 3005

Tale of Two Presidents

Bill Clinton's motto might be described as "Make love, not war." Unfortunately he took the sentiment a bridge too far and got himself impeached. Still Clinton was on to something. Two previous presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, had seen their administrations destroyed by choosing war. Clinton's choice ruined one blue dress and soiled his legacy. Johnson and Nixon's choice got millions of people killed, now we know, unnecessarily.

I was in the Marine Corps so I'm hardly a knee jerk peacenik. Sometimes turning the other cheek amounts to suicide. But those times are rare. Most of the time war is the worst choice among other unattractive choices. For example, had we turned the other cheek (as in minded our damn business) in Vietnam, the only thing what would have changed is a whole lot more folks on both sides would still have a pulse today.

Still it seems clear that, while some men can't seem to control their lust for nookey, others can't seem to control their lust for war. In both cases history teaches, these two very different attractions are both open flames to these men's inner moth. Puff.

History, what a bitch. Had George W. Bush shown more interest in reading something deeper than the morning sports section he might have heeded the many "Danger, open flame" pre-war warnings.

Of course, it's too late now. Instead he released the Dogs of War.

(Preemptive note: No, I am not comparing our soldiers to dogs or chickens This is what we call a "metaphor." Okay? So, spare me the angry emails. You would not believe some of the emails I get!)


On the farm we have a way of punishing a chicken killing dog. (PETA's gonna hate this.) We tie the dead chicken around the offending dog's neck and leave it there a few days. It drives the dog nuts. He tears through the fields, howls, whines, rolls in the dirt, skids along the ground, trying to shed the evidence of his crime. It's quite a show.

Remember that image the next time you hear George W. Bush giving a speech attacking those who criticize his war in Iraq. The dead chickens of Iraq are now securely fastened around Bush's neck. And he knows now that the longer they remain the worse they're gonna stink.

So he rolls in the dirt.

"Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people. Leaders in my administration and members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence on Iraq, and reached the same conclusion: Saddam Hussein was a threat.....Yet some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. And that's irresponsible." (Bush, Nov. 14, Alaska AF Base speech)

Thrash, run, roll, scrape along the ground, anything to get those dead, rotting chickens off his neck. And it's not just one dead chicken, but over 2000 with fresh kills added every day now. He's becoming a walking meat market, a talking graveyard, a blood-soaked rot-reeking apparition.

And so he runs through the mud.

"As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory."

(Translation: Come on fellas, take responsibility for some of these dead chickens, will ya? You wanted to kill them too once. John Kerry, here, put these rotting roosters around your neck, you voted to let me do it. Bill Frist, don't you dare chicken out on me now. And hey, HEY, John Edwards, where the hell do you think you're going? No, no, it's too late to say it was all a big mistake. These chickens are dead already and you're one of the guys who let me do it. Listen, if you fellas leave me to holding the bag on all these deaths I swear I will lift my leg on you every chance I get.. Yes I will. Damn these things are starting to stink.")

Run, roll, whine, beg, but whatever he does those dead stick. They have become Bush's macabre scarlet letters. This, the man who criticized Clinton for making love then chose war himself. Clinton got impeached. But it would seem that the same folks who impeached Clinton because he lied about making love, aren't up to impeaching Bush for lying to justify a war that has killed who knows how many tens of thousands.

So all we can do is keep tying the fresh kills around Bush's neck. And then never allow him shake them off. Never.

November 14, 2005

Full Stop .. Full Stop!

I spent the long weekend thinking about damage control. No, not the countless damage control operations underway within the Bush administration now. I was thinking about what we, the nearly 60% of Americans who believe President Bush is doing a bad job, are going to do now. Bush has three more years at the wheel. How are we going to keep this guy from creating any more messes we, our children and grand children will have to clean up.

I'm serious. We need a damage control strategy, and we need one fast. I wrote a piece many months ago entitled, "Obstructionists of America, Unite!" I suggested that sometimes obstructionism can be the passive aggressive exercise of true patriotism. I must have floated the idea too soon because the response to that piece was underwhelming.

Not now though. If ever there was a time to employ massive obstruction, it's now. After all the damage the Bushites have already done, are we really going to just let these Typhoid Marys continue infecting everything they touch, everything Americans consider dear?

I proposed back then that House and Senate Democrats stop running from Republican charges they are being obstructionists, and instead turn obstructionism into a virtue. When Republicans accuse them of obstructing administration plans, programs or appointees, instead of launching into some convoluted, triangulated response, just thank them for the compliment.

Then use the opportunity to ask them why, in light of the administrations abysmal track record, they are not helping obstruct this out of control wrecking operation. In case they forgot, or weren't paying attention the last five years, hand them this list:

First-term Damage Report

They blew the Clinton $5.6 trillion surplus
Cut taxes by nearly $2 trillion benefiting mostly wealthy earners.
Ran up national debt to over $8 trillion - and growing $3.5 billion a day.
Created record high energy prices and record high earnings for energy companies
Started a war on false pretenses.
Global warming is on a tear (just ask the folks in Florida and Louisiana.)
Treats real scientists the same way the Catholic Church treated Galileo.

And he's not done. We know now that George W. Bush is not trainable. What we see is what we get – and that's exactly what we're gonna get for three more years unless we stop him. Under our system of government, the only legal way to stop a sitting President is to block his every move and abscess him off from the body politic.

We must especially stop him from creating damage that will persist long after he's finally out of our hair. That means stopping him from stacking the Supreme Court with right-wing Christian Ayatollahs. The confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito is certain only if Democrats allow it to come to a vote.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - A coalition of liberal groups is preparing a national television advertising campaign against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. that seeks to move the debate over his selection beyond abortion rights and focus instead on subjects like police searches and employment discrimination, several leaders of the coalition said. (Full Story)

If Senate Republicans try blackmailing Democrats out of filibustering Alito by trying to change Senate rules – the "nuclear option" – limiting the filibuster, Democrats should shut the whole damn place down again, just as Harry Reed did two weeks ago. Then, once behind closed doors, tell Republicans that if they persist with the nuclear option Democrats will shut the Senate down everyday from that day forward until they relent. Nothing will get done. (Which is win in itself, considering most of what the administrations wants to get done shouldn't get done anyway.)

But real obstructionism is not for sissies. Democrats are going to have to be ready to confront the GOP counter-attacks. They will accuse Democrats of everything from "hurting our troops overseas," to "giving aid and comfort to terrorists," to "putting all Americans at risk," to flat out accusing them of being "unpatriotic."

To which Democrats must respond, "bring it on." Unpatriotic you say? Well Mr./Ms. Republican explain this to American voters:

* How patriotic is it to get US kids killed to fulfill some neocon wet-dream of democratizing the Middle East?
* How patriotic is it to lie to the US Congress, to the United Nations and the American people to justify that deadly fool's errand?
* How patriotic is it to get over 2000 America kids killed just so we can turn Iraq over to convicted embezzler, serial liar and human scum like Ahmed Chalabi?
* How patriotic was it to appoint a certifiable imbecile to run America's lead emergency response agency?
* How patriotic is it to turn America's once robust middle class into a bunch of underpaid Wal-Mart serfs?
* How patriotic is it to allow nearly 50 million Americans, men, women and children, face life without even the most basic health coverage?
* How patriotic is it to saddle working families with skyrocketing energy prices while energy companies pocket obscenely large profits? (Might this be why they insist on keeping secret the Vice President's energy task force proceedings?)
* How patriotic is it to toss tax-cut crumbs to hard working Americans while giving the already wealthy windfall tax cuts?
* How patriotic is it to stand by while your nation runs secret dungeon-prisons offshore and tortures foreign prisoners in America's name?
* How patriotic is it to let large drug companies monopolize the market on life-saving drugs and then pass a law prohibiting bankrupt Medicare from negotiating lower prices for such drugs?
* How patriotic is it for top administration officials to lie to a federal prosecutor?


Democrats should tell GOP attackers they will be happy to explain to them why obstructionism is patriotic just as soon as they answer those questions. That is, if they still need such an explanation.

This is THE moment.

The time is at hand for Democrats to either prove to us they are up to leading and governing. But it's not that clear to them yet. A debate is raging at the highest levels of the DNC. One side-- let's call it the Hillary faction – argues that taking clear-cut positions on divisive issues is dangerous. They contend that Republicans are screwing things up so much that Dems need do nothing but wait until the next election. By that time, the Hillary faction argues, voters will be so disgusted with the GOP they will turn them out of office in mass. (Voters in Louisiana, where politicians of both parties are famous for their lack of ethics, have a saying when they turn one party out office: "It was just time to let the fat hogs out and the lean hogs in." )

The other faction, call it the Feingold faction, argues that America can't wait that long. That Democrats need to take unambiguous stands against this administration's ruinous policies. And then they must steel themselves to fight the predicable counter-attacks, which by now they know will be both personal and vicious. (Sissies need not apply.)

This is where the rubber of real politics meets the road. It's Profiles in Courage time for Democrats. If they are not willing -- or able -- to lay down on the tracks and stop such a provably disastrous, wrong-headed, ideological juggernaut, then they are not worthy of power themselves. And, if Democrats can't even stop further damage, how can we expect them make the tough decisions it will require to fix what the Bushites have already screwed up?

Memo To Democrats:

Blah, blah, blah. For five years, blah, blah, blah. Talking isn't governing. Talking isn't leadership either. Enough with the talk! Time for action. Just do it. Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. No pain, no gain. So unless you feel the burn you're not trying hard enough. Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.

Stop them. Stop them now before they infect the Supreme Court. Stop them now from further harming to the environment that sustains us all. Stop them now from channeling yet more national treasure into the bank accounts of modern-day Robber Barons. Stop them now from turning America's once-proud working class into indentured workers and Wal-Mart into America's company store.

Stop them. Stop them. Stop them now! Bring them to a full stop. Then run out the clock.

Enough already! No more. No mas. Basta!

November 12, 2005

Addicts v. Dealers

We really are a hopelessly clueless people. Proof of that observation was televised live yesterday on C-SPAN as a dozen Senators berated oil company CEOs on our behalf for making too much money selling us gasoline.

Why is that proof we are stupid? Let's see. What say instead of of oil company execs the grillees had been big time crack dealers? And the grillers representatives of Crack Addicts of America.

Senator Goodsmile: "Mr. SlingThing, can you explain to this committee how you sleep at night? How do you justify the prices you charge for a substance our constituents need to carry on their daily lives?"

SlingThing: Man, I don't cook it, I just serve it - ya know what I mean? The street sets the price dude, not me. I believe you guys call it "the supply/demand pricing mechanism. I'm a capitalist, dude. I got responsibilities to my people. Got a problem with that?

(While watching that dog-and-pony show yesterday I had an image of the oil execs swearing, "I do not believe oil is addictive." But that didn't happen because Alaska's oil company pimp, Sen. Ted Stevens, who chaired the hearing, refused to allow his friends to be put under oath.)

Anyway, the whole thing was a disgrace. I mean, come on folks, those oil guys are not the core problem. We are. We have gotten ourselves hooked on stuff made from dead dinosaurs, the quintessential finite resource! How smart is that?

Nevertheless, there we were yesterday cheering on those empty-suit Senators we sent out to beat up on the our suppliers because they are making too much money off our energy drug of choice. I almost (I said "almost") felt sorry for the oil execs. As senators scolded them the look on their faces reminded me of the look you get from a puppy when you shout, "NO, no no.. outside. You poop OUTSIDE!"

Look, those guys are just doing what the mercantile universe created them to do – make as much hay as they can while the sun shines. And spare them lectures on "social responsibility." Only one thing controls how much people like that make – demand. Yeah, yeah, I know, supply plays a key role too.

News Flash: They control supply. We control demand. They have no conscience. We have no self-restraint. It's your classic pusher/user dynamic.

The oil companies did not create those enormous profits alone. Our demand for their product was the Yin to their Yang.

"Oh but they are gouging," you whine. To which I reply - DUH! No kidding. My, my but aren't you the deep thinker. And just how might they get away with "gouging" someone who is not consuming bucket loads of their product? Hmmm.. funny how that works.

Look, these guys know the day is rapidly approaching when the only sound coming out of their oil fields is the same sound you get when your straw hits the bottom of a milkshake. While we go our merry way consuming their oil products, they're already trying to figure out how to corner the market on emerging alternative energy sources. They're smart that way. We're dumb that way. In the meantime they're going to maximize the profits they can make on their dwindling supply of dead dinosaur juice.

I really don't give fig how much money those jerks make. In fact I hope they raise gas prices even higher because that's the only way some of us are going to get the message. I am already seeing some of the biggest gas addicts changing their ways, or at least trying. My local want ads are filled with late model SUV's and Hummers for sale by fools hoping there are still just enough fools out there to bail them out of their gas guzzler. I hope they're wrong, that no one buys their SUV and they are forced to donate them to the Polly Klass Foundation to sell for scrap.

We are not only stupid but hypocritical too. For example, I live just outside the Northern California little wine country town of Sebastopol. The place crawls with granola crunching, Birkenstock wearing folk who pride themselves on their social and environmental values. The town leaders officially declared Sebastopol a "Nuclear Free Zone." Not that anyone ever tried to bring nukes to Sebastopol, but a sign at the edge of town now warns them they better not try. While nuclear-free the town isn't bug-free. They also banned the use of garden pesticides within city limits. (I don't know about you, but I've had more problems with bugs than nukes. But I digress.)

Many of the folks who live here now are former city folk who moved to the country to connect with Mother Nature. While it doesn't snow here and paved roads will take you anywhere you need to get, the first thing most of them did was buy a big-ass, four-wheel drive SUV. I couldn't drive through my little town without getting stuck behind enormous SUVs festooned with bicycle racks and kayaks and/or skis strapped to roof-racks sporting bumper stickers declaring, "NO BLOOD FOR OIL." Helloooooo..... Disconnect, disconnect.. cognitive dissonance alert..... anyone in there?

Yet there are glimmers of hope. In recent months something has changed. Crunchy Town is suddenly knee deep in Toyota Prius hybrids. And local motorcycle shops report demand for Hogs is down and sales of thrifty European-type motor scooters way up. Maybe, just maybe, a sign we are prepared to begin taking the cure.

That's good, because the cure for our energy problems will not be found in thumping on oil company executives to make their product more affordable. Until an alternative energy future matures we will have to continue doing business with the oil pushers. What don't have to do is continue consuming their product at the same level we do now. We need to wean ourselves off the stuff, slowly, but steadily. Hybrid cars are a good start. They remind me of devices smokers use that filter more and more nicotine out of cigarette smoke until they no longer crave the stuff.

But we can do a hell of a lot more. City folk should use public transportation or, as they do in Europe, drive a motor scooter to work. (Which reminds me... European women, zipping through city streets to work, brief case balanced on the floor boards of a shinny little Vespas are – to my thinking – so sexy! Okay, sorry... too much information.) I'm decidedly unsexy, even when riding my little Honda scooter, but I sure feel cocky when I pass gas stations and wave at all those folks pumping tens of gallons into the bellies of the their four-wheel beasts.

We can also begin weaning ourselves off the local utility company by using the money we saved not buying a new SUV to go solar. Whenever I fly over a city I look down on all those sunlit rooftops beneath, each of them is a parasite, sucking power off a utility grid. With solar panels on those rooftops those homes becomes energy producers instead. Not only can the right kind of solar system provide its own energy needs, but can pump any surplus produced into the grid. In the Southwest and West, where the sun shines more often than it doesn't, billions of watts of energy rains down on rooftops. Today it all goes to waste. What an unconscionable waste.

And yes, yes, I know the all about those "pay back formulas" that supposedly show it takes many years to recoup the cost of a solar-electric system. First, that's not true. The formulas used to calculate solar pay-back rates don't factor in the full social and environmental costs we all pay in many ways for the fossil fuels utilities burn to produce energy. (Oh, and if you did those calculations last winter, do them again this winter. I suspect even those phony pay-back formulas will cough up some pretty impressive pay-back rates this time around.)

Anyway, lay off the oil pushers. Let them make a bit more money before they join the horse and buggy industries. Just make sure that this time we don't allow them to corner our next sources of energy. The sun is free and hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe. if we let Big Energy corner those markets after the screwing they've given us on oil, well, then we deserve to be milked like a herd of cows.

November 9, 2005

Breaking Business News
Kingdom of Oz Acquires State of Kansas

NFR-November 7, 2005: For almost fifty years residents of the surreal Kingdom of OZ have fumed over how their kingdom was portrayed as a lesser alternative to the State of Kansas. After years of behind the scenes fundraising and organizing the Kingdom of Oz (KOZ) completed a hostile takeover of the state yesterday.

"I may not have gotten a brain from the Grand Wizard of Oz, but he gave me something more important," said Wizard of Oz spokesman Scott Strawman. "He gave me an appreciation for nonsense, things we wish were true, but aren't. He gave me the ability to make them true just by pretending they are. Now I am able to create my own reality right out of my empty head. What a gift! And that's why I am so pleased to announce that as of today The Yellow Brick Road runs right through heart – and heads -- of the wonderful State of Kansas."

A clearly delighted Strawman added in a mocking voice, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Ha,ha,ha. That mean little ethnocentric insult sure came back to haunt -em, huh?"

The first official act passed by the state's new owner was to revise school science cirroculum.

"The children of this poor land have had their heads stuffed so full of facts, facts, facts, they are losing their appreciation for nonsense, said Prof. Dobson M. Munchkin. "Nonsense and faith go hand in hand. If you teach children that facts are more 'real' than nonsense, you undermine faith. Faith has to be blind or it becomes an oxymoron. And faith is built on foundations of nonsense. Kansas schools have turned children against nonsense and we intend to change that. We need to reawaken the nonsense center in these student's central cortexes. Once that little bugger wakes back up these kids will once again be able to blend fact and fiction in ways that render them indistinguishable."

Prof. Dobson said the damage fact-based education causes could best be seen by looking at Dorothy's own behavior.

"While Hollywood portrayed Dorothy as a heroine, she was actually a victim," Dobson said. "By the time she ended up in Oz, fact-based science had driven that poor little girl crazy. Day in and day out Dorothy was told she was descended from monkeys. By the time we got her she was hallucinating that Oz was filled with evil flying monkeys."

"Well, first of all, we don't have monkeys in Oz," he pointed out. "Never have had monkeys -- and we sure as hell don't have flying monkeys. They were figments of that poor little girl's fact-fatiqued mind. The poor thing had been exposed for weeks on end to fossil records showing she was, (so they claim,) descended from disgusting, hairy, tree-climbing, ball-scratching, dung throwing apes. No wonder she was such a mess."

As of yesterday Kansas students will be exposed to Ozian science. Ozian science differs from fact-filled science in that Ozian science is devoid of facts. In the place of facts students are asked to stretch their minds. They are asked to imagine the possibility they were created just the way they are a few thousand years ago by an "intelligent being." (Well actually by the Wizard, but, Dobson said, "we have to bring them along slowly as it will take a while to shake all those facts loose. Oh, and BTW.. just between us -- the Wizard also created monkeys, but Ozian science teaches that monkeys were a completely different product line entirely.")

Reached for comment at the White House President George Bush said he was highly supportive of the Oz/Kansas merger.

"Oz is a faith-based kingdom," Bush said. "It's another step in allowing nonsense back into our public square again. People who believe in nonsense have been scorned and excluded from the public square for too long. I speak regularly with the Wizard. The Wizard understands how important it is to fight terrorists wherever they are. He too has felt the ugly hand of terror in the form of terrorists in black robes flying around and scaring His people. The Wizard is on our side."

The President left the podium ignoring questions shouted by Helen Thomas.

"Mr. President. Mr. President. Is it true you have asked the Wizard for a brain?"

Meanwhile back in Kansas legislators adopted a new state slogan for their license plates:

"Brains? We don't need no stinkin brains."

November 8. 2005

French Fries

What do you think is happening in France? If you think the rioting is just further proof that Islamic immigrants to the West are nothing but trouble, you'd be wrong. Well, mostly wrong anyway.

The rioting in France can be explained by two words – cheap labor. France, like most other mature Western economies, has embraced cheap labor from underdeveloped countries. That flood of cheap labor has, at least until now, served both corporations and consumers. Corporate earnings are up across the board, for example.

But, you point out, wages are down across the board too. How does that serve consumers – most of whom are working class folk?

The answer comes as a single hyphenated word -- Wal-Mart. Cheap labor produces cheap goods. How many times have you bought something at a Big Box store and said to yourself, "I don't know how they can make and sell this item so cheaply?" Down deep, of course, you really don't care. You're just happy you got the gizmo for so little.

And it's not just cheap labor abroad we are addicted to. In both Europe and the US legal and illegal immigration has turned ordinary Americans into cheap labor employers as well. Even a working class stiff can afford a gardener, a housekeeper, a nanny, these days. You can quite literally pick them up right off the street-corner.

Want an addition built on your home? It's almost certain that the only reason you can even afford it is because the contractor no longer hires union carpenters. Instead he picks up a few Mexican carpenters down at the corner or hiring hall. They are skilled, hardworking, and put in a full day for a fraction of what a union carpenter would charge. You're happy. The contractor's happy. But some former union carpenter now works at the local Oil Stop earning half what he once made. Then again that one-time union carpenter is still able to make ends meet, thanks to cheap imported goods – at least for now.

So far, so good for everyone -- at least it would appear. But there is an inevitable price for all this, and the French are paying it now. There really is no free lunch, even in France. Two dynamics are now in play -- even if most western governments still refuse to acknowledge them.

First, western economies have been busy for the past ten years or so stewing the golden geese that made them economic powerhouses in the first place --- their working middle classes. Workers real wages have plummeted as their homegrown industries turned to cheaper foreign labor. In the short run those cheap goods coming back into their countries blunted the effect of lower domestic wages. But that can't go on forever. Sooner or later western consumers will run out of both disposable income and available credit. When that happens the middle class consumer – the engine that drives every western economy – will stop pulling the train. (We should see the first hint of that here during the coming Holiday season.)

Second, low wages paid to immigrants, many illegal, create the very conditions that sparked the riots in France. Do the math yourself. If American workers, who have seen their real wages drop like a rock, are beginning to feel the first signs of economic stress, imagine the fiscal conditions that face the average low-wage immigrant family. Such immigrants already live on the economic razor's edge. What they learn -- too late -- is that the deck is stacked against them. They cannot join the mainstream of these societies, because allowing them to do so would require paying them a livable wage. And what purpose would that serve, paying immigrants the same as domestic workers? The French, for example, already don't much care for having all these "ethnic" folk in their country to begin with. The only reason the put up with them is because they work for peanuts.

France may be the first western nation to experience the downside of cheap imported labor, but will not be the last. Trapped in ghettos by low wages, stuck in low-end jobs by cultural, racial and religious factors, the lid eventually blows -- always. When that happens the citizens and companies that had benefited from their cheap labor first always go into denial. They are shocked – simply shocked! They blame everyone but themselves for the real reasons for the violence. The rioters are "scum, stirred up by radical clerics. They are not oppressed, they have no genuine issues. They are just criminals."

Yes, some of the rioters we are seeing in France are scum. Some are criminals. And, you can bet your sweet bippy Islamo-fascists are using the unrest to stir up more trouble. But France's real problem isn't al Qaeda, but that French society has become hooked on a pool of surplus immigrant labor. I said "surplus," because that's key to keeping cheap labor, cheap. The trouble is that surplus of labor also means that at any point in time there are more unemployed immigrants in France than working, with more joining that surplus labor pool each day. Tick, tick, tick.

America is lucky in that our flood of immigrants comes largely from Mexico, a peaceful country populated by a peaceful people. (Have you ever heard of a Mexican suicide bomber? Not a chance.) France's immigrants, by comparison, largely herald from poor Muslim countries, like former French colonies in North Africa – a part of the world where political/social/religous violence is the norm rather than the exception.

But Americans and the French have their thirst for cheap labor in common. And sooner or later social rest will hit here as well. In France it was the poor immigrants making all the noise. Here I suspect it will be America workers who got a taste of middle class life only to have snatched away from them. Those once well-paid Americans now find themselves stranded between the rich who are getting richer and the working poor who are getting poorer. The middle ground upon which they once stood, has all but disappeared. They may not understand the macro-economic reasons why that has happened, but they know this much -- they no longer have the means of moving up the economic ladder, and they have no intention of joining the working poor.

When that realization sinks in, even dirt cheap toaster ovens at Wal-Mart won't help. That's when the shit hits the fan here. And I strongly suspect it will not be Jose' from Guadalahara throwing rocks at American riot police, but Homer from Detroit..

November 7, 2005

School for Scoundrels

Over the weekend the White House announced that, due to recent lapses, the entire White House staff will have to attend an ethics refresher course. Well, that's the way they described it. But NFR has obtained the actual text of the presentation:



To: All
From: The Boss

Subject: Mandatory Refresher Course

It has come to my attention that some of youse guys have gotten sloppy. I am – distressed. Already four of our best people are in hot water:

* Tom The Hammer, busted for money laundering,
* Bill The Doctor, under investigation for his stock deals
* Scooter Lou, indicted for perjury.
* Karl The Turd Blossom, under federal investigation.

People, this kinda sloppiness has gotta stop. It threatens to unravel our whole thing and send five years of hard work right down the terlet. That's why I called you all together today. I want to review review the progress Our Thing has made over the past five years as a way to point out why youse gotta get back on the program. Any further sloppiness threatens all these gains:

Our Gun Rackets:
The "things that go bang" racket has never been better. Special credit goes to our consigliere Dick The Pacemaker for turning that lemon, the 9/11 attacks, into gallons upon gallons of lemonade. Those stupid Arabs provided Dick and me a gift that just keeps giving. Where everyone else only saw death and rubble, Dicky saw the biggest opportunity since prohibition. He took that single event and leveraged it into two – count-em TWO -- full-scale wars. Need I tell you that fire arms sales have gone right off the chart? And, we have not ignored the local markets either. Here at home we just got a law passed that makes it impossible to sue our friends in the gun business – even if their product is actually used for what it's meant to be used for. (Oh man, I bet the tobacco folks wish now they'd played ball with us. With enough "support" from them we could have gotten tobacco companies the same deal. But, oh no, they took the sissy way out.) Additional Reading

Our Drug Rackets:
We are close to shutting down pharmaceutical shipments from competing sources, like Canada, that threatened profit margins here. We are still working on that, But we hit a home run a couple of years ago with that friggin Medicare reform bill. That little job shows what we can accomplish when you all follow the rules and don't get sloppy. All we had to do was get someone to slip one tiny sentence into the bill prohibiting the government from negotiating the price of drugs with our suppliers. Now it's pay up or die. That's our kinda business environment, people. And it's wasn't even complicated. It's was just a matter of stuffing enough money into the right envelopes at the right time. If you can't do that right, what can you do? Additional Reading


Our Health Care Rackets:
This is another area where we have made progress in spite of the wreckage our earlier efforts created. We've been able to tighten the screws on health care costs at rates that would make credit card companies blush, and still defeat any move towards a cheaper and more efficient single-payer health insurance system. Our health insurance rackets remain largely unregulated allowing us to collect higher and higher premiums from people unlikely to need medical care while dumping the actual sickos on the feds. It's the perfect racket. Americans now pay more for health care than any people on earth while getting less for their money than those in countries with single-payer or national health insurance. HMO's, rest homes, PPOs, we are into all of them now. And the best is yet to come. Aging Baby Boomers represent the Mother Lode, so people, we can't afford to blow it now! Additional Reading


Our Jobs Rackets:
We have all but destroyed organized labor, and without even having to break a single leg or arm. All we had to do was get worker-friendly sounding bills like "Right to Work," laws passed. Then we gave workers a choice; accept less in pay and benefits or we ship your job to Timbuktu. So far the we have trimmed about 10 grand a year from the average family income. And, do I need to tell you that that 10 grand rattles right down to the bottom line? When unions try to fight back we just slip a few bucks to the right politicians and they pass laws that make it harder for unions to slip a few bucks to the same politicians. Once again people – the rule is NO competition. It's Our Thing or it's nothing. Additional Reading

Our Gasoline Rackets:
The days when we had to just live off skimming gasoline taxes alone, are over. We have made enormous progress in this area in just the last year. Once again, I have to hand it to Dicky. The guy can spot a gem in ton of cow manure from a mile away. Who but Dicky would have figured out how to turn a couple of storms into a billions in profits? Huh? Whata guy. The trick now is to keep this thing going by making sure supplies stay tight. That means coming up with excuses why we can't refine more gasoline. We gotta keep the supply tight to keep the price high. Is that simple enough for you folks? Or do I have to draw you a friggin picture? But you gotta watch what the hell you say in public. No gloating! And for Christsake dress down. I don't want some goody two-shoe member of congress pointing that while old folks can't afford to heat their homes, youse guys are walking around in $2000 Aramni suits. Additional Reading

Our Tax Rackets:
What do we gain if all the above rackets produce billions in revenue if a hunk of it ends up in the federal treasury? No good. Taxes just puts us in an awkward position. We either have to cough up the money or cheat. And remember, Big Al didn't end up in the slammer for his rackets, but for tax evasion. It's here that we have probably achieved our most spectacular success. Over the past five years we have convinced the feds to cut the taxes our taxes by almost two TRILLION smackaroes. We are rolling in extra dough. Sweet, huh? But our work is not done. We still can't pass our stash to our kids when we die without cutting the feds in on the deal. We have some of our best people working on this problem. The first phase of that operation is complete. They have successfully renamed the problem. It's no longer the "Inheritance Tax," but the "Death Tax." Friggin brilliant! Who would want to tax death? No one – we hope. Additional Reading

So people, I hope you now understand why it's so important you review the rules and get back on the program. Scooter Lou and Turd Blossom Karl screwed up and put us on the defensive. They better be the last.

Class dismissed.

Hey, and be careful out there. No more slip ups.

The Niger Docs

Who's Spooking Who?
or
How Those Niger Forgeries Started a War


A Special Report

Rocco Martino in one of the reasons I am so thankful that I no longer have to cover intelligence stories. Rocco, in case haven't heard. was the source of those forged documents that allegedly proved "Saddam was acquiring uranium from Africa."

But, if his name is new to you, it's not new to me. Rocco and I crossed paths twice during the 1980s, and he was peddling documents back then too. At the time I was trying to untangle another Bush-mess, this one by the George Bush The First. An Italian bank, BNL (Banca Nazionale del Lavoro), that had a branch in Atlanta, Georgia, had apparently lent Saddam Hussein $5 billion secured by American taxpayers. It's quite a tale and one of the most audacious and successful cover-ups in American history. But it's too long a tale to tell here. So, here, read about it, and then come back. We'll wait for you.



What a story, huh? Amazing. Simply amazing. Okay, now that you understand the BNL Affair, back to Rocco.

Here's how Rocco operated. An ex-Italian cop, Rocco briefly worked as an Italian intelligence agent. He was fired from that job and was now out in the cold. As soon as Rocco learned a reporter was poking around the BNL story he would let them know he "had documents."

Rocco was fishing for a Judy Miller, but I wasn't not biting. By that time I had already been dragged through the alleged Ronald Reagan "October Surprise" farce and later the cesspool of characters involved in the very real Iran/Contra scandal. So as soon as Rocco turned up I knew I was dealing with "one of them."

This is important, because you really can't fully understand how great nations often get themselves into great messes, messes that can kill thousands, even millions, without understanding "them," men like Rocco Martino

My co-authors and I ran into our first batch of "them" in the early 1980's while we were researching for our book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans. At a handful of failed thrifts we had uncovered murky evidence that strongly indicated that money from defaulted loans there had been siphoned off into intelligence operations, mainly to support Contra logistical operations.

After considerable poking around we made contact with a retired CIA field agent. His job for agency had been to recruit and manage, "them." Remarkably, (and for reasons we still do not fully understand,) he agreed to sit down and explain to us how it works.

He said the agency scouts "them" at places like small rural airports and firing ranges. They are looking for classic "Walter Mitty types," he said. Losers who, while destined to live unremarkable lives, maintained rich fantasy lives.

"We approach them and ask if they'd be interested in serving their country," he said.

It was like dangling catnip in frong of a cat. "Be a spy! Wow. When can I start?"

Of course, they are warned, their position had to be secret and unofficial. If caught the agency would disavow any knowledge of them. While this was all too true and served the CIA's purposes, it also served to fire the recruit's already overactive imagination. (Strains of "Secret Agent Man" blared in their heads.)

He said they would be tested first by being given the assignment to spy and report back on a fellow new recruit. If they passed that test he would move them up to something riskier, something they didn't want actual CIA agents involved in. (Remember, it's illegal for the CIA conduct operations on US soil.) If one of these independent contractors got caught, he would turn that lemon into lemonade by getting him out of jail with a slap on the wrist and probation. "After that," he said, "we own the guy."

But, we argued, most of the guys we ran into who claimed to be working undercover for the CIA were, to one degree or another, a bit nuts.

He smiled broadly. "Yes," he said, "that's a key part of the profile we seek. These kind of guys have spent most of their lives lying and telling tall tales. They are known liars. That makes it easy for us to deny their story if they start shooting off their mouths to the police or the press and throwing the agency's name around."

In the years that followed I got to see just what he meant. No sooner did a story I wrote appeared in print, if it had anything to do with intelligence "they" started popping out of the woodwork; Richard Brenneke, Joe Kelso, Henrich Rupp, Farhad Azima -- the list goes on and on. There seemed to be a lot of "them" out there and, they all had-- or claimed to have -- "documents." And they were not ordinary documents. They were real attention-getting documents; telexes detailing arms shipments, gold caches, aircraft leases... stamped SECRET and TOP SECRET. They all looked real. I still have a lot of them in my files and to this day, they still look real.

There was always a germ of confirmable truth to their tales, just enough to keep a reporter digging. They were also masters of using the press to market their tales, leaking confirming information to other reporters they knew talked to each other, creating a kind of journalistic echo chamber that fed the fire and gave their information various degrees of credibilty.

While some of the documents and information they provided were real, so too were these people -- real strange. The were SO NOT 007. I just couldn't put them in the same company with the people and agencies listed on the documents.

I recall a phone call I got from one of these characters in particular, Joe Kelso, He called me one day in the late 1980's as I was trying to untangle the Iran/Contra mess. The conversation went like this:

Joe: "Hi, Steve, Joe.

"Hi Joe. Where are you calling from?" (I could hear traffic in the background so I knew he was using a pay phone on the street someplace.)

Joe: "I'm using a field telephone, Steve. Don't ask where. I have documents tying the White House to this whole mess."

"And just where did you get these documents, Joe?"

Joe: (Long pause for effect) Steve, six men are sucking dirt today because they asked that same question."

Not only was it B-movie dialog but Joe never coughed up documents so I wrote him off as a nut.

A few months later I got my hands on a copy of Oliver North's handwritten desk diaries and there it was, Joe Kelso's name. He had been busted in Denver for trying to sell a ground-to-air missile an ATF undercover agent and North had called the US Attorney in Denver. Kelso was soon sprung. I called his attorney who confirmed he had represented Joe but said he had no idea who paid the bill. Joe was immediately spirited out to the country with a false passport -- a violation of his parole.

Then I got my hands on more Iran/Contra documents and there was sorry Joe once again. This time he was down in Costa Rica at a farm used by North to secretly funnel supplies to the Contras. It seems he showed up at the Costa Rican ranch of U.S.-born John Hull, who was letting North use his ranch as a major hub of illegal arms shipments. Hull learned of Kelso's arrival at his ranch because of machine gun fire. It seems Costa Rican security forces were trying to bring him in for questioning when he tried to escape. Hull rush outside and stopped the soldiers from killing Kelso in just the nick of time. Hull reported the whole affair to North in a long, classified telex which is now part of the public record. (See Hull's Telex to North Here. In it Kelso is also referred to by his passport alias, Richard Williams.")

Since being out of the country was a violation of Kelso's parole from the Denver bust, he could not come back to the US. Instead, he claims, the CIA reassigned him to Eastern Europe to feed them information on drug lords.

"Joseph Kelso - Freelance investigator/informant who revealed DEA corruption in Costa Rica which connected to CIA. Gave a 3 volume deposition in Avirgan v. Hull in So. Florida. Yet also turns up connected to CIA laundering of C-130 aircraft through the Forest Service "
(From House Hearings, Volume II of the CIA's Inspector General's Report on CIA Drug Trafficking. Expect Closed Door Hearings in June or July, 1998)

(The last I heard about Joe is he was still out there making trouble. The Russian police and Interpol were looking for him.... something about a missing Soviet-era gold cache.)

Kelso is a good example of "them." They really do exist. They are created and used by intelligence services around the world, usually only once, then discarded. But they never give it up. Everything they do after that, especially if it's illegal, is "part of a covert operation – don't ask."

Some of "them", we became convinced, walked off with taxpayer-insured deposits from failed thrifts during the 1980s. Some of that money, we believe, did indeed go to buy and transort armsfor the Contras at time when Congress had passed a law against doing so. And, while in the vault , they stole some for themselves as well. Proscuting such people proved difficult. In one such case a US Attorney in Kansas City who filed charges against one of "them" for stealing money from Indian Springs State Bank got a call for headquarters telling him to drop the case, that the guy "had a get-out-of-jail-free-card," from the CIA. (More)

(Also see a Henrich Rupp arms sale Telex and remarkable Letter to George H. Bush HERE)

Rocco Martino, the guy who came up with the forged Niger documents is one of "them." He's a dapper ex-Italian spy, now out in the cold, who used what he had learned during a short tenure as a real spy to help start a war.

Martino's covert "career" has been well-chronicled HERE. If you have been wondering how that line about "uranium from Africa" got into Bush's State of the Union address it begins with Rocco – then the French, then British, and finally into the eager and unquestioning hands of the Vice President of the United States.

As you read about Rocco understand this -- because it's the only way to understand the otherwise often inexplicable messes that flare up from time to time: Intelligence services around the world, including our own CIA, create dozens, maybe hundreds of Rocco Martino's and Joe Kelso's every year. They use them for jobs that require deniability, then jettison them. There are now an untold number of "them" rattling around out there. Some are haplessly harmless. Other's, like Rocco, are accidents just waiting to happen.

What kind of accidents? Nuclear proliferation accidents, genocidal arms sale accidents and, in the case at hand, a war accident.

November 3, 2005

BREAKING NEWS
Class Warfare Narrowly Averted

For decades America's top earners had been oppressed, milked by liberals like a herd of cows, forced to share their earnings with America's less fortunate. Liberals called it, "taxation," but the rich knew what it really was – mandatory tithing. Arbitrary formulas, set by peons, dictated by law what portion of their annual earnings they had to share.

It was class warfare at it's most base. Disguised as "taxation," it was really redistribution of wealth, the cancer of socialism eating away the heart of the free enterprise system.

Liberation came in 2001 when compassionate conservatives came to power and began freeing long-suffering One Percenters from the onerous burden of sharing. First they got nearly $2 trillion in individual and corporate tithing relief. A couple of months ago compassionate conservatives also granted American oil companies another $12 billion in additional tax relief. And they are still working on getting the estate tax repealed so the kids of One Percenters will never go wanting.

Free at last, free at last, thank George Almighty they are nearly home free at last. No longer would the well-off be forced to share so much of their hard-earned money with America's less fortunate – (translation: lazy, shiftless, dumb, and/or suspiciously brown,) or their kids.

Finally the (shiftless) cycle of poverty will no longer be subsidized by the earnings of the rich. Finally the rich can keep more of what they earn. And, now, when and if the spirit moves them, they will share as much, or little, of it with the poor as they wish. And no more handouts. No siree. Instead the rich will use that extra money to create jobs for the poor. Everyone profits. The poor get a job and the rich get a bottomless pool of dirt cheap labor. Lawns and gardens manicured by small armies of grateful immigrants, who must now chose -- work for peanuts or starve.

Food Stamp Cuts Are On Table
Washington Post - Thursday, November 3, 2005

House Republicans are pushing to cut tens of thousands of legal immigrants off food stamps, partially reversing President Bush's efforts to win Latino votes by restoring similar cuts made in the 1990s...The food stamp measure is just one of several provisions in an expansive congressional budget-cutting package that critics say unfairly targets the poor and disadvantaged, especially poor children.....(and) that would affect millions of Americans, including the fast-growing immigrant population.

The food stamp cuts in the House measure would knock nearly 300,000 people off nutritional assistance programs, including 70,000 legal immigrants, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Those immigrants would lose their benefits because the House measure would require legal immigrants to live in the United States for seven years before becoming eligible to receive food stamps, rather than the current five years. About 40,000 children would lose eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunches, the CBO estimated. (Full Story)

At last, the universe is back in balance. The poor are poorer and the rich are richer. And what are the rich doing with the money they no longer have to tithe?

"The billionaire and former PeopleSoft owner has bowed to the pressure of disgruntled residents of Alamo, Calif., over his 72,000-square-foot dream home....The abode had promised to be something beyond magnificent – a 22-acre lot with space for a horse stable, two swimming pools and a 20-car garage. In fact it was beginning to sound more like a hotel than a home, which is precisely what gave the neighbors cause to grumble."
(Full Story)

If that mansion had it been built as planned it would have dwarfed William Randolf Heart's California castle.

Oh, I see that resentful look on your face. What's a person do with 72,000 square feet of living space – about the size of about 40 middle-class homes -- you ask? Well, first, it's none of your damn business. The guy earned the money fair and square and got to keep more of it -- thanks to the Bush tax cuts. Now he gets to do what ever he frigging wants to do with it.

But your question misses the upside. Think of the dozens of minimum wage jobs it will take to keep the place up. (Muchos de trabajo! Muchos de trabajo barato!)

Now you're obsessing over the 20-car garage, aren't you? Well, the guy knows he can only drive one car at a time, so shut up about that. You're missing the point – again. Cars need what? Mechanics, stupid. (Mecánicos.) Grease monkeys. Guys in oil-stained jump suits who work for peanuts. And, since they are about to get their food stamps yanked, they'll appreciate the peanuts.

Oh, look at yourselves! Envy -- written all over your faces. What an ugly thing it is. Now you're wanting to know why the guy needs two swimming pools. How little you know about the burdens of wealth. Pools need cleaning, dummy. And what's he supposed to do while the pool is being cleaned? Huh? Have you considered that? The second pool is his "back up pool," for when the pool cleaning monkeys are working on the other one. (Aren't you ashamed of yourselves now?)

Class warfare is such an ugly thing. Compassionate conservatives knew that and arrived in the nick of time to head off an outbreak. Which is why the very first thing they did when they came to power was to remove the main irritant – forced tithing -- slashing how much the rich are forced to share with the poor. If left unchecked the rich may have revolted leading to a nasty outbreak of class warfare.

Compassionate conservatives -- never has so much been showered on so few in return for so little.


Today's Fun Fact
Donald Rumsfeld is the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of and still has millions of dollars of stock in Gilead Pharmaceuticals which has the patent on Tamiflu, the only antiviral vaccine which might be effective against avarian flu, and which is marketed by Roche, which is refusing to let other pharmaceuticals produce the vaccine, even if royalties are paid. What a coincidence that Bush announces a $7 billion plan to fight avarian flu (just as Iraq comes under new and more severe scrutiny). This world is just filled with coincidences, isn't it?
(From Reader Jim Sorrells)

November 2, 2005

November 2, 2005

Old Soviet Gulag: Under New Management

Remember the incredible hissy-fit Bush administration officials threw a few months ago when Amnesty International accused them of setting up a Soviet-style Gulag for captured terror suspects? Well, today we learn just why they were so sensitive about that accusation.

Washington Post: The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement....The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents. (Full (sorry) Tale)

Not only was the Amnesty International comparison accurate in spirit, but in fact as well. The administration had actually subcontracted with the very former Soviet Bloc nations that ran the Soviet Gulags to now handle Islamic terror suspects. The Evil Empire's Gulag, it seems, has a new landlord -- and it us.

Among the many instructive lessons this story teaches is this one; the louder this administration squeals when accused of something awful, the more likely it is that the accusation is not only true, but understated.


Confess and Be Saved
Yesterday, in a rare display of backbone, Senate Democrats forced Republicans to confront an issue they have been avoiding for two years – whether or not the Bush administration purposely misled Congress and the American people in order to take the nation to war.

"Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session yesterday, infuriating Republicans but extracting from them a promise to speed up an inquiry into the Bush administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the war." (Full Story)

Great, and about time.


Now it's the Democrat's turn. Just forcing Republicans into the national confessional is not enough. Democrats want the reins of governance back. Fine. I'm certainly ready for a change. But I don't want is to exchange a bunch of liars for a pack of valueless opportunists that can't -- or just won't -- admit their own mistakes.

Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are prime examples. Both want to run for President in 08, Both voted "yes" in giving George W. Bush a free hand in Iraq. How would they vote now, now that we know about Scooter Libby; now that we know there was not WMD; now that we know there was no Niger/Iraq uranium deal? Inquiring minds want to know.

"Potential Democratic presidential candidates who voted to give President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq could face a political problem — they supported a war that their party's rank-and-file now strongly view as a mistake. Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Joseph Biden of Delaware, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina are mulling over running for the Democratic nomination. All voted in October 2002 for a resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq...They no doubt will be forced to explain their positions — both then and now — and in doing so could open themselves to attack from candidates who didn't support the resolution or didn't have to cast the politically tricky vote. (Full Story)

Every single Democrat that voted to give the President a free hand in Iraq who runs for office in 2006 and 2008 must be forced to answer that question. And not with the mealy mouth, passive aggressive, beat-around-the-bush nonsense they've been hiding behind, either.

I know that it's hard to admit error in something as awful as this unjust and unjustifiable war. I know because I had to do it myself. After Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the administration's "evidence" before the UN, they had me too. I never trusted Bush, but Powell I figured was a straight shooter. Turns out they suckered him too. In the weeks leading up to the war I found myself embroiled in many a heated argument with longtime liberal friends. Some still aren't talking to me.

It wasn't long after the shooting and dying started that I came to my senses. I immediately sent out an email to all whom I had offended entitled, "So, how wrong can a guy be?"

Funny thing – it wasn't as hard as I thought. In fact it felt pretty good. Maybe that was just my Catholic upbringing. You know, sin like hell then just pop into one of the Church's conveniently located Five-Minute Martinizing outlets, fess up and emerge clean as a whistle and guilt free.

Okay, now it's your turn Hillary, Kerry, the rest of you... fess up. What's it gonna take to get you to just say it? Here – since so many Dems seem unable to find the words, let me help:

* "No. Of course not. If I knew what I know today I would not have voted to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq."

* "Yes, it's a good thing that Saddam is no longer in power but the way we did it was wrong. The means America uses to achieve a positive end, matter."

* "Imposing democracy at the point of a gun is not enlightened foreign policy. It's imperialism, and we should not be in the imperialism business."

Relief and redemption -- just that easy. If individual Dems won't publicly say such things there can only be two reasons:

1)They lack the guts to admit they made a mistake.

2)They would still vote the same way despite knowing the administration wrapped already bad intel into a blanket of lies.

If they fall under Reason No.1, they are gutless. If they fall under Reason No. 2, they're crazy.

In either case, I don't want them any where near the levers of power. And, as bad as the current crop of Republicans are, they could not have started this war without Democrats... too many Democrats... and not just back bencher Democrats either.

So Democrats need to lance this boil, and soon. Because, even if the Senate Intelligence Committee conducts a thorough and fair investigation into the administration's actions leading up to the war vote, that will not solve the problem for Dems who refuse to say they would not change their "yes" vote. First, such an answer makes them appear insane. After all, who else but a loon, would vote the same way today knowing now that the information upon which they based their original vote was exactly opposite of the truth. The exact opposite.

Every time I hear one of these Dems say they'd vote the same way despite what we've learned, I want to order a couple of dozen straight jackets, head for DC and throw the whole lot of them into an asylum dedicated to "Democrats scared crazy by GOP thugs."

That's why in the next two national elections I will vote only for "Born-Again Democrats." That would be any Dem who, though he/she voted for the war, is now willing to bear public witness to that mistake -- to confirm the error of their ways and affirm they've rediscovered the righteous path and promise to sin no more.

Come on guys. I did it. It's not that hard. Praise the truth! Because only the truth can set those wayward Democrats free.

On the other hand, Democrats who continue to duck this obvious and long-overdue confession don't deserve my vote – or yours.

November 1, 2005

Planning Ain't Doing

Many years ago I had a business partner who was forever "getting ready." That's all he ever did. Day in and day out he would organize things at the office. He established filing and cross-filing strategies that made the Dewey Decimal System look like chaos. He was forever "covering bases," just in case "this" or "that" happened.

The only trouble was when "this" or "that" actually happened, he froze. All his plans and systems proved useless when the "this" that materialized wasn't exactly as he had planned. (And don't even ask about "that!" )

I see a lot of that guy in George W. Bush. He has been making plans since 9/11. He's made all manner of plans to protect us against catastrophes. And, he's still at it. Today, for example, he's explaining his plan to protect us from bird flu.

But like my former partner, when "this" or "that" actually happens, Bush freezes, just as he froze the morning of 9/11 and in the wake of Katrina.

What of his many "plans?" Billions upon billions of dollars went into planning after 9/11 how to react if another catastrophic event hit on American soil.

Then hurricane Katrina hit and those plans didn't fit the model. Instead of protecting the victims of that catastrophe his mismatched plans victimized them further. Back at the office in DC the Bush team, plans in hand, engaged in a full out Chinese fire drill as people in the affected states went thirsty, hungry and died.

Bush's planning know no borders either. After 9/11 President Bush busied himself laying down plans to defeat Islamo-Fascism in the Middle East. He made lists of people and countries and set goals. Among those goals was to democratize the whole damn region. On paper, it looked great. On the ground, it was another of this administration's Keystone Cops operations. Because, you see, actual events on the ground refused to conform to his plan.

If Bush's plan making has failed the nation and world, it's served him pretty well. Announcing highfalutin plans let George W. Bush appear as though he's doing his job. Busy, busy, busy. With a freshly hatched plan in hand he could give speeches, like the one he gave this morning explaining how he plans to protect Americans from the deadly bird flu. Not to worry, he said.
He's got a plan. He's even set up a bird flu pandemic Web site. Busy, busy, busy. Work, work, work.

Call me silly, but I worry. I worry that this is the same guy who couldn't even get bottles of plain water to thirsty victims in New Orleans. Now he's asking us to believe that if our families are struck by bird flu he will be there for us with life-saving medicines. He tells us not to stockpile Tamiflu. Just let him do it for us. (It will be shipped immediately -- on the same FEMA trucks that took ice bound for New Orleans to Maine.)

His abysmal planning record aside, there he was again this morning, looking busy and making plans -- or as he likes to put it, "Getting down to work...doin' what the American people elected me to do... protecting them..."

Of course when "this" or "that" actually happens we all know now it's always back to the drawing board.

Remember his plan to "capture Osama bin Laden, dead or alive." Well, Osama is still alive, and free.

Then there was his plan was liberate and democratize Afghanistan. American and NATO troops are still there fighting and dying. The day they leave is the day the Taliban crawl out of their caves and resume where they left off.

And of course there was his grandest plan -- liberate and democratize Iraq. Saddam is in jail but his followers and Islamo-Fascists from throughout the region have turned the entire country into the set for the next Mad Max movie. Bush's plan, it seems didn't include any post-Saddam scenarios.

Ah yes, and let's not forget his plan to secure America's energy future. Congress passed Bush's energy plan earlier this year. Now gas and home heating fuel prices are at historic highs and his energy plan offers no solutions whatsoever. (Unless of course you're in the oil business, in which case you got $12 billion in tax cuts.)

I liked my former compulsive planning business partner. But I finally had to tell him that planning wasn't the same as doing. It's not about the quality of the plan, but the quality of it's execution. Someone needs to break that bit of news to George as well because so far Bush's record of execution ranks right down there with that of his old pal Brownie. (You're doing a heck of bad job, Bushie)

Bush's is record of handling actual events hardly inspires confidence. Which is probably why Americans continue to find ways to stockpile their own stash of Tamiflu. They don't want to the next victims shown on CNN languishing in misery while the President announces a plan to fix the plan that was supposed to be helping them.

"Not to worry," Bush assures Americans. Forget about it. We all saw what happened in New Orleans and later in Texas and now in Florida. He'll have to pry the Tamiflu from my dead, cold fingers. Because, Tamiflu doesn't kill people. Bumbling politicians, like Bush and his Mayberry Militia cronies, kill people

Quote of the Day

From yesterday's White House News Briefing on Bush's latest Supreme Court Appointment. John Roberts of CBS News to White House Spokesguy Scott McClellan:

"So, Scott, you said that -- or the President said, repeatedly, that Harriet Miers was the best person for the job. So does that mean that Alito is sloppy seconds, or what?"

October 31, 2005

Lyin' & Dyin' Redux


There's only one story that's important today, and it's not President Bush's latest pick for the Supreme Court. It's this one"

Washington -- The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that NSA officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence during the Tonkin Gulf episode that helped precipitate the Vietnam War, according to two people familiar with the historian's work.....The research by Robert Hanyok, the NSA historian, was detailed four years ago in an in-house article that remains classified, in part because agency officials feared its release might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, according to an intelligence official familiar with some internal discussions of the matter. (Full Story)

Unfortunately it took over 40 years to learn about this pertinent little fact. But only because Lyndon Johnson didn't have a Joe Wilson shooting off his mouth. So the evidence that the Vietnam War was begun on a lie, stayed buried. Did Johnson know the alleged North Vietnamese attack on two of our destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf was pure fiction? Sure he did. In a candid moment Johnson told then under secretary of state, George W. Ball, "Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish!"

"Rather than come clean about their mistake, they helped launch the United States into a bloody war that would last for 10 years," said Matthew M. Aid, an independent expert on the events leading up to the Vietnam War.

Did George W. Bush know the Niger documents were fakes? I don't know. But Dick Cheney sure as hell did, which is why he sent Scooter Libby out to smear Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie. Wilson was exposing the Bush administration's Tonkin Gulf lie, that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger.

So here we are again, fighting an undeclared war thousands of miles from home. Another generation of American kids are dying and being maimed for life because someone in high office lied and then covered it up, or at least in this case, tried to cover it up.

Individuals in both administrations lied to begin a war and then were comfortable with keeping their mouths shut about it while other people's kids died. Whether you are for this administration or against it, ask yourself, what kind of people do something like that?

I lived through the Johnson administration and that first war – barely. Over 60,000 of my generation didn't. A lot of us suspected at the time that the war had been cooked up, but couldn't prove it. There was a draft back then so we had little choice in the matter anyway. A lot of guys, like me, who opposed the war, ended up in the military, unless of course you had the right connections.

Forty years later all America has to show for that war is a slab of polished black granite on the Mall in DC. All the families who lost loves ones in Vietnam have left is a name chiseled there to show they ever existed -- all for a lie.

Here we are again with a foreign war raging, kids and parents dying, again for a lie.

Considering it was way back in the 1960's when the NSA reports were doctored and then hidden, I don't find it surprising they got away with it. Those were different times. Whistle blowers within government were a rarity.

When Nixon shouldered the war from Johnson he was determined not to let the lie destroy him as it had his predessor. He got elected by promising he had "a secret plan to end the war," which was of course another lie. That's why Nixon pulled out all the stops in to destroy former Pentagon analyst, Daniel EIlsberg when he leaked the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg did not have a wife working for the CIA, but he was seeing a shrink. So the Nixon gang broke into his shrink's office and stole his file hoping they could prove he was crazy.

That was a long time ago. And the Tonkin Gulf lie was about to be revealed to the American people back in 2001, but it wasn't. Not because it would discredit America's credibility in Vietnam. History has already taken care of that. No, it had to be kept secret because it was the Bush administrations play book for justifying waging war on Iraq. The last thing frothing at the mouth Neocons needed in 2001 was to have a near identical intelligence cooking operation 41 years ago come to light. Most citizens assume their government lies to them. Seldom though do we get hard proof like that.

After being fed the fictional Tonkin Gulf attack reports Congress dutifully passed a resolution giving President Johnson the right "to use force if necessary," in Vietnam. Sound familiar? No formal declaration of war as required by the US Constitution. Instead a chickenshit resolution relieving individual members of Congress from the most important decision they were elected to make -- to take the nation to war.

Forty years later Congress again ducked and covered, hiding from their constitutional obligation and passing a near identical resolution, giving President Bush the right to use "force if necessary," in Iraq. The first time Congress pulled that stunt they got all those kids of my generation killed, not to mention a million or more Vietnamese. One would think a blood stain of that magnitude would have current members of Congress seeing the ghosts of members the "Vietnam War Congress" wailing and prowling the halls like hundreds of mournful Lady Macbeths. But no, they did it again.

In both Vietnam and Iraq once the shooting started all those responsible could do was to bury their lies as deeply as possible. What else could they do once the dogs of war had been released? People were dying, first by the dozens, then by the hundreds, and then the thousands and tens of thousands. The higher the price in human life rose the more important it became that the lie that caused those deaths remain hidden.

Which is precisely why Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were so awfully busy in June and July of 2003. And why they were willing to go so far as to threaten national security, not to mention the Valerie Wilson's life.

After all, what else could they do. Joe Wilson wasn't seeing a shrink.